Many of us at the table tonight are members of the LGBTQ+ community. While tonight is, in many ways, a celebration of and call for empathy, our struggle for justice for queer folks is deeply personal. Whether we, ourselves, identify as LGTBQ+ or not, tonight we commit to loving our queer friends and family. We recognize that our work for freedom and liberation must turn inwards, amplifying the voices of the members of the Jewish community who have been marginalized and creating space for them.
We celebrate our embrace of our queer siblings today as we acknowledge our community's failure to accept them throughout time and to this day.
We rejoice in a vision of a future in which all feel free to live and to love their truth as we remember those who lived and died, hiding their hearts and souls in secret.
We triumph in the strides the activists who precede us have left behind as we mourn the lives lost to violence, ignorance, and hatred.
Raising our cups, we bless the second cup of wine.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם
בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech Haolam,
borei p'ri hagafen.
